Musings
by KMC2
Summary: Bob Rebadow reflects on his life in OZ...and what the future may hold...


OZ..and the characters therein are the property of Tom Fontana...I'm just borrowing them.   
  
Musings...by KMC  
  
I never expected her to understand...Sister Peter Marie, that is. How could she? Indeed, how could anyone who hasn't experienced what I have.  
  
I told her I wasn't afraid to die...and it's true. I no longer am. It is, I must admit, a frightening epiphany. And yet, at the same time, a very freeing one.  
  
I was afraid to die once....I felt the cold, clammy sweat of fear as they led my down the corridor to the electric chair. An eye for an eye they had decided...they would take my life...as I had taken his.  
  
I hadn't meant to. To kill I mean. But he had rejected me. My plans for the building. And he didn't know how much that hurt. So much thought, planning, creativity...so much of myself was in that design that he that he so carelessly dismissed. If he had just said no...if he had ...talked about it. But he laughed...as if all the work...all the thought...all of...me...that I had poured into those designs were completely without worth...without meaning.   
  
I had always heard the expression "seeing red". It's true you know. One awful moment of all encompassing rage, like a curtain of blood before my eyes. And then there WAS blood...everywhere. And I watched with a burning hot satisfaction as the life ebbed and died from his eyes.  
  
It wasn't until later that the cold set in. I was arrested of course, tried, sentenced and found guilty. How not? I sometimes wonder why they even bothered...why they wasted the time and money on a trial. It's not as if I could have tried to hide my guilt. Killing a man in a sidewalk cafe in front of witnesses? That in itself should have told them that I was not a murderer at heart. That I was simply driven by a moment's madness and rage. Yet... Robert Rebadow...sentenced to die   
  
But I didn't. Die, that is. Fate, or God, or an incredibly convoluted chain of events stayed the hand of legal vengence. At the exact moment when the switch was thrown, the power went out...all up and down the eastern seaboard. The blackout of 1965...a massive mechanical failure which wreaked havoc with so many lives...and saved mine.  
  
But saved? For what? Why? To spend the rest of my life here, in this place? Surrounded by the outcasts of society, the dregs, the violent, the savage, the criminal...and the criminally stupid?  
  
I thought I had had an epiphany that day...the day I should have died. That God had spared me for a reason. And I have spent the last thirty-five years trying to figure out just what that reason is. In between trying to survive.  
  
That is, of course, the trick to it all. Survival. You really are on your own in here. No one really cares about you. Not in here. The guards are here in theory to keep us from hurting each other. But of course, that's not what really happens. Indeed so much happens that they simply close their eyes to. What are we to them...we "lifers"? We're just a burden on society. A body that needs to be housed and fed. And if something happens to us...well...it's one less burden on society, isn't it?  
  
And so you learn very quickly that your survival depends on you. On being stronger, or tougher, or smarter. I chose smarter. And it worked. It worked for many years. Knowing who to make friends with. Having something that only you could do...to make you...valuable...worth keeping alive.  
  
And so it did work for many years. And then it slowly stopped working. I was older, and they were younger, and the young no longer respected age and intelligence and experience. And while being chosen to be part of McManus's experiment helped....numerically there were less prisoners in Em City than in the gen pop, less people to look over your shoulder for. Still, the combination was the same...there were simply less of them.   
  
And then....God started talking to me. At least I assume it was him. I mean, who else could it have been? And in a strange sort of way that helped me for a time. They say that certain native tribes have a respect for...and a fear of...those they deem "crazy." And what could be crazier...an old man having conversations with God?  
  
But even I began to disbelieve my visions. So much seemed to happen in so short a time. Being beaten, the riot, being diagnosed with diabetes. And having our escape tunnel taken from us. It was ours...we had planned it, dug it to completion. To this day I'm not sure what I would have done if we had made it out. Where I would have gone. But it didn't matter then. And I don't think it would have mattered this time....had I been asked. Just the idea of being "out", if only for a short time. Besides, what could they have done to me? I'm going to die in prison, I know that. Solitary? The hole? It would have been worth it. And then those little bastards took it away from us. So we didn't escape. Well, neither did they. And don't think that didn't provide a sort of grim satisfaction.  
  
I suppose that meeting my son and grandson for the first time should have filled me with...joy? And it did, of a sort. And yet at the same time all the years of waste and regret...of everything one moment of blood red anger cost crashed down on me. The realization of everything I missed in this life. Of everything that I would never have.  
  
And then to be given a choice...kill or be killed. And I have no doubt that he would have carried through with his threat. Not that I have any significance in the general scheme of things...but my death would have served as a warning. And he was right. Spending years in solitary, the thought of that was intolorable. And I doubt it would have ultimately saved me. If they want you dead...you'll die.  
  
And so once again I took a life. I suppose you could rationalize it as truly an act of self-defense. It was my life...or his. But it wasn't like before. That had been unplanned, an act done of hot, irrational anger. This was cold and calculated. My life or his. My life or his. And while you could ask just what was the worth of my life...yet the instinct for self preservation is still strong in me. I'm may not be afraid of death...but I'm not yet ready to meet it.  
  
And so I made a choice. Again I watched life ebb and die in someone's eyes. He would have taken me with him if he could have. But I didn't give him that chance.   
  
I'm not afraid to die any more...I think I said that before. So I'm no longer afraid to stand up for myself...and for others. Which of course could very well get me killed. I know Hill and Busmalis are afraid of that, afraid that my new attitude is endangering myself. And they're probably right. After all, I'm many things, but I'm not stupid. But for now, at least, I'll savor my new found "freedom"  
  
I've asked for my "reward". I've shocked him I think. Who would have thought that "sweet old Bob" would actually want to kill someone?  
  
I'm not even entirely sure why I want that. Or who I want to die by my hand. I'm angry at Busmalis...furiously so. How dare he slight me like that. How dare he think I couldn't keep up with him?   
  
But....he's too obvious. They know I'm angry with him.  
  
Even I don't know exactly what's going on inside my head. Maybe I've finally slipped over the edge. It wouldn't be that hard in this place. The miracle is keeping sane. And since I've no hope of every leaving this place except in a box, what does it matter anymore if it's sooner or later? As long as I'm alive until the very end.  
  
And I feel truly alive....for the first time in years. So, who will it be? 


End file.
